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Learning Democracy : Education Reform in West Germany, 1945-1965 / Brian Puaca.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Monographs in German History ; 27Publisher: New York ; Oxford : Berghahn Books, [2009]Copyright date: ©2009Description: 1 online resource (236 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781845455682
  • 9781845459284
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 370.94309045
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- FIGURES -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- Chapter 1 REBUILDING EDUCATION IN A “NEW SPIRIT” The Challenges of the Immediate Postwar Period, 1945–1947 -- Chapter 2 “WE LEARNED WHAT DEMOCRACY REALLY MEANT” New Experiences Inside and Outside the Classroom, 1948–1954 -- Chapter 3 POLITICAL EDUCATION Reforms Continue Beneath the Surface, 1955–1959 -- Chapter 4 REFORM REIGNITED Ambitious Eff orts in the New Decade, 1960–1965 -- CONCLUSION -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX
Summary: Scholarship on the history of West Germany’s educational system has traditionally portrayed the postwar period of Allied occupation as a failure and the following decades as a time of pedagogical stagnation. Two decades after World War II, however, the Federal Republic had become a stable democracy, a member of NATO, and a close ally of the West. Had the schools really failed to contribute to this remarkable transformation of German society and political culture? This study persuasively argues that long before the protest movements of the late 1960s, the West German educational system was undergoing meaningful reform from within. Although politicians and intellectual elites paid little attention to education after 1945, administrators, teachers, and pupils initiated significant changes in schools at the local level. The work of these actors resulted in an array of democratic reforms that signaled a departure from the authoritarian and nationalistic legacies of the past. The establishment of exchange programs between the United States and West Germany, the formation of student government organizations and student newspapers, the publication of revised history and civics textbooks, the expansion of teacher training programs, and the creation of a Social Studies curriculum all contributed to the advent of a new German educational system following World War II. The subtle, incremental reforms inaugurated during the first two postwar decades prepared a new generation of young Germans for their responsibilities as citizens of a democratic state.
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Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781845459284

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- FIGURES -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- Chapter 1 REBUILDING EDUCATION IN A “NEW SPIRIT” The Challenges of the Immediate Postwar Period, 1945–1947 -- Chapter 2 “WE LEARNED WHAT DEMOCRACY REALLY MEANT” New Experiences Inside and Outside the Classroom, 1948–1954 -- Chapter 3 POLITICAL EDUCATION Reforms Continue Beneath the Surface, 1955–1959 -- Chapter 4 REFORM REIGNITED Ambitious Eff orts in the New Decade, 1960–1965 -- CONCLUSION -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

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Scholarship on the history of West Germany’s educational system has traditionally portrayed the postwar period of Allied occupation as a failure and the following decades as a time of pedagogical stagnation. Two decades after World War II, however, the Federal Republic had become a stable democracy, a member of NATO, and a close ally of the West. Had the schools really failed to contribute to this remarkable transformation of German society and political culture? This study persuasively argues that long before the protest movements of the late 1960s, the West German educational system was undergoing meaningful reform from within. Although politicians and intellectual elites paid little attention to education after 1945, administrators, teachers, and pupils initiated significant changes in schools at the local level. The work of these actors resulted in an array of democratic reforms that signaled a departure from the authoritarian and nationalistic legacies of the past. The establishment of exchange programs between the United States and West Germany, the formation of student government organizations and student newspapers, the publication of revised history and civics textbooks, the expansion of teacher training programs, and the creation of a Social Studies curriculum all contributed to the advent of a new German educational system following World War II. The subtle, incremental reforms inaugurated during the first two postwar decades prepared a new generation of young Germans for their responsibilities as citizens of a democratic state.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)